Thursday 6 September 2007

Running at three steps per second

Posted by speedygeoff on Thursday, September 06, 2007 with
"Running is the greatest metaphor for life, because you get out of it what you put into it."

Just lately, I have been hearing stories of runners trying out my "three steps per second" recommendation and finding that it works. Two of the testimonies:

Helen is currently among the fastest women running the monthly 6k "Jogalong". She has run about 40 of them and this month managed to improve her race pb by twenty seconds, while focusing on maintaining 3 steps per second the whole way.

Phill is currently not among the fastest men running the weekly 6k BBQ Stakes. Yesterday he tried keeping three steps per second going for the whole distance, managed it, and “out of the blue” ran a twenty second pb. Phill has run about 70 of these races.

It’s worth trying. While many runners will already have learned how to run very efficiently and won’t benefit, many other runners, particularly those who take long strides, will definitely improve.

See my article "How to run Faster" in the September 2007 edition of Vetrunner, or you can read a short version here. Because of the interest, I will publish the full article here in due course.

Yesterday's BBQ Stakes times:
A better run from each of us than we managed last week. I am slowly improving again.
Helen ran 26.48
I ran 26:57
Roger 28:11
I should point out the start is handicapped & we do not run together!

Weighty problem
See what getting a hamstring injury & not being able to run, does to my weight! Dear, oh, dear.


Maria running Cross Country in the ACT.


Maria already runs with short quick steps. And runs very fast. And enjoys very high AST%s.